


x

by asarahworld



Series: Bigger on the Inside [21]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27904483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asarahworld/pseuds/asarahworld
Summary: just a lil ficlet I've been sitting on for a few months where River meets Rose, mid-adventure and mid-jump.
Relationships: River Song & Rose Tyler
Series: Bigger on the Inside [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/398203
Kudos: 6





	x

“Oh, please, there’s no need get my husband involved – he doesn’t even know I’ve broken out of my cell.” There was a pause before the woman continued. “How I return is my own business, as is what I do while away. Who do you think you are, my mother?”

She watched the men who circled her, hefting great weapons that would do far worse than kill her if fired. She was, of course, in complete control of the situation, if not exactly where she wanted to be. Ideally, it would be the captain tied in a prisoner’s chair and herself doing the interrogation… but she’d work with it. After all, she knew all there was to know about this ship and its crew. She’d done her research. She also knew the ship had gone missing a week after leaving a decimated and plundered mining colony in its wake.

“Which leads us back to my original question – how are you transporting the chrysalis? Any sudden motion is apt to tear the whole thing apart!”

“What we do with it, is none o’ yer business, sweetheart,” the captain leered. “As it happens, we’ve a buyer who’s prepared to do ‘is own transport. So don’t you go on worryin’ yer little head.” He ended with two lazy clicks of his tongue.

“Oh, I’m not worried,” River lied. “You see, I was hired to take the chrysalis, through any means possible. Destroyed if necessary. This job’s more of a preventative measure. Whatever it takes to stop the children from misbehaving. The chrysalis isn’t the actual job. You are.”

“You ‘ear that, Siantik? We’re ‘er job. Who’d pay ‘er to take us out, then?

“Oh, I don’t think that part’s relevant.” River glanced at pirates, still strategically guarding all exits from the room. If only she wasn’t restrained, she could activate her vortex manipulator – seize the chrysalis and leave. Surreptitiously, she resumed shimmying her wrists together, feeling the rope burn away at her skin. She paused, tested the rope’s strength, and continued her efforts. It would take time to loosen the ropes. Time she simply did not have.

“Are you going to kill me, then? Because you’d better get on with it, I don’t have all day to spend sitting around here waiting for you.” River goaded the pirates, wishing they would come and untie her. Didn’t they realize that she was on a tight schedule? “Killing me or not won’t help you to survive what comes next.”

“And what’s that?” The captain advanced on her, hand poised over his weapon.

River laughed. “I don’t suppose it matters whether I tell you or not, especially if I’m going to die anyway.”

“Sir,” a shipman spoke up from the door.

“I’m in an interrogation, boy. What is it?” the captain whipped around.

“Sir,” the young man looked from River to the captain, “she’s got a partner.” The captain turned back to River.  
“How many others are onboard?”

River kept her face stoic. “None. This was a solo mission. I don’t work well with others, was an exceptionally strange child when I was young,” she said lightly.

“Bring the other in here. We’ll interrogate them together.”

The shipman returned a moment later with another woman, bound and gagged. River looked her over once, then back to the captain, shrugging.

“You’re in league with her then?”

“I’ve never seen her before,” the new arrival said. She looked at River intently and, for the briefest moment, River thought she could see the woman’s past glowing golden around her. River frowned.

“Bring her closer.” Despite her being the prisoner, it was not a request and the shipman complied. River studied the other woman’s face, looking deep into her whiskey eyes. There was the faintest shimmer of gold, and River unconsciously reached out to touch her hand.

“The Heart of the TARDIS,” she whispered, immediately recognizing the glowing energy. How she’d been touched by the TARDIS… well, River intended to find that out once they had escaped this less than ideal ship.

“You do know each other, then, eh? That settles it, add on a charge of conspiracy and y’ell both get the ‘ern.”  
River looked at the golden woman who’d been touched by the TARDIS and cocked her head. “What would you say to getting out of here and going somewhere a bit more…civilized?”

The golden woman smiled. “I’d like that very much.” She looked at the device on River’s wrist. “Is that a Vortex manipulator?”

“Thought you hadn’t noticed,” River grinned. This cell was definitely not the end of this particular adventure. She held out her hand. “Took it off the black market. Well, I would have taken the seller off the market if he hadn’t sold it to me, and let’s just say that it wouldn’t have been the fun way.” She winked and reached out to the other woman. “Let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Idk how temporal theory works ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Here’s a little something short and sweet, mostly because I wouldn’t know how to continue it without it turning into a series and I’m not the writer for that. River’s off on her own adventure and Rose is dimension hopping, they go for a galactic coffee date and swap stories about the biggest idiot in the galaxies.  
> Also River senses time energy because she has Time Lord DNA and Rose is, of course, the Bad Wolf. The Child and Heart of the TARDIS. There’s a (tenuous) connection there. And that’s what fic writers love, isn’t it?


End file.
